by
Thomas Dworetzky, Contributing Reporter | February 17, 2016
Faced with a patient in pain, conscientious doctors must thread the needle between therapeutic doses of painkillers and feeding an addiction.
But in the case of Los Angeles doctor, Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng, a jury has ruled that isn't what happened. She was the first physician ever convicted of murder for over-prescribing drugs,
according to the Los Angeles Times.
Now she has notched another first. She has been sentenced to 30 years-to-life for the second-degree murders of three patients who overdosed, a decision that experts advise may change prescribing habits nationwide.
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Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli noted at the sentencing that Tseng's defense that her patients had not followed her prescribing instructions, "seems to be an attempt to put the blame on someone else," according to the Los Angeles Times.
"I'm really terribly sorry," Tseng said at her sentencing. "I have been and forever will be praying for you. May God bless all of you and grant comfort to all who have been affected by my actions."
Her conviction comes as the CDC has determined that the rising epidemic of prescription-pill addiction is fueling nearly 17,000 overdose deaths annually, as well as a rise in heroin addiction,
according to Reuters.
Besides her conviction on three murder counts, the SoCal physician was also found guilty of 19 counts of unlawful controlled substance prescription and one count of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. Those patients she murdered included: Vu Nguyen, 28, of Lake Forest; Steven Ogle, 24, of Palm Desert; and Joseph Rovero, 21, an Arizona State University student from San Ramon,
according to KTLA in Los Angeles.
The Associated Press reported that according to a DEA affidavit, Tseng wrote more than 27,000 prescriptions over a three-year period starting in January 2007 — an average of 25 a day,
noted CBS news.
The government has been cracking down on "pill mills" nationwide. In 2014, two-dozen defendants were indicted in New York, including doctors, in a racket that distributed over 5 million oxycodone pills. In 2015, the Justice Department led a giant takedown involving the arrests of 280 individuals, of which 22 were doctors and pharmacists, who were part of a plan to unload addictive drugs in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
